Way to the Dawn
by LadyTaiyo
Summary: No one expected Sora to die in the fight against darkness. In the wake of tragedy Riku and Kairi are left struggling to pick up the pieces and ,somehow, overcome the growing threat to the worlds on their own. Riku X Kairi, Rating may increase.
1. Prologue: Soul Eater

**_Wow, this is a huge switch from writing for Harry Potter. I adore HP, but Kingdom Hearts has this beautiful ambiguity that gives me so much more freedom. I love Riku and Kairi together and I hope to do the pairing justice. _**

**_Feedback means so much to me, it is always appreciated._**

**_The rating is listed as T, but I want to let everyone know that it is more like very high T or low M, and it may change to the latter._**

**_Yes I did name name the story after Riku's key blade. Every chapter will also be named after a different key blade._**

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><p><strong><em> Way to the Dawn<em>**

**_ Prologue: Soul Eater_**

It was raining. Or maybe all the water came from their tears alone.

But the sky was overcast and dark, an almost unheard of phenomena on the Destiny Islands. The scent of the storm hung heavy in the air, suffocating in it's weight. The sky _knew_.

Every single person gathered on a miserable looking stretch of beach was wearing black. From Wakka's shorts to Selphie's dress. Mourners, lamenting a devastating loss. No one had seen it coming, it didn't feel real, more like a bad dream, their collective consciousness was screaming to wake up.

A tall teenage boy stood amongst them with reddened eyes, he was dressed in an overlong black coat, and likely black garb underneath, even the bandages on his wrist that braced a severely injured joint had not escaped the color scheme.

His good arm was wrapped around a petite teenage girl, inky darkness was the fabric of a sleeved shift that draped her small frame. The boy's long fingers stroked very cautiously at the waist length strands of her crimson hair, as he struggled to calm her down, soothing the drenched curtain away from her face ceaselessly. He knew full well it was damn poor comfort, there was no consolation for something like this. Her hands were fisted into the front of his clothing and she was sobbing helplessly, bordering on hysterics.

He asked for the millionth time if she needed to go home. She didn't have to put herself through this, Sora would have understood, he wouldn't have wanted her to be so sad.

"Sora", she whispered, blearily, like she was waking from a bad dream. The word left her lips in company with an almost violent recoil, she folded in on herself like he had just put a knife through her chest. The name was a blade, twisting viciously in fresh wounds every time it was spoken. She clutched at her breast and, if possible, began to cry even harder.

"Riku", she whimpered and her expression was almost delirious, a mask of pain, and the grief of a woman who had lived one hundred years. It didn't belong on a seventeen year old girl with her whole life ahead of her and it frightened the young man whose name she had uttered.

"Riku", she rasped again, more urgently now, "It isn't fair. You two only just got back, it isn't enough time! Why couldn't we have more time?", it wasn't a question, it was a plea, and the boy inferred it wasn't really meant for him at all.

"I don't know Kairi", he murmured back. It was all his voice would allow for, if he tried to speak more he would cry too, and she needed him to be strong.

"But Sora, oh god Sora, he's-", her words died before she could speak those last fatal syllables. They were taboo to the two of them, not to be uttered until the pain had faded to the point that they could both live through hearing it.

"Yeah", he whispered, his throat closing over.

All around them their friends and neighbors were in shock, who expected to go to a seventeen year olds funeral? Neither Riku nor Kairi could bring themselves to look at Sora's mother, but they could hear her weeping on his father's shoulder. Cloud passed by them, to join their "extended family" from Radiant Garden, he squeezed the red head's shoulder as he edged by the pair, he understood loss all too well. A warning look and a shake of the head from the tall boy prevented him trying to console her. Any words at that moment could only have made it worse.

King Mickey was not in attendance, nor would his presence have been a welcome one, he had already done enough damage. Donald and Goofy were off in the vast reaches of the worlds somewhere, working twice as hard to carry out the mission assigned to the keyblade bearer they had lost.

There was no grave, no casket, no body to mourn over, so they took blossoms and sticks of incense down to the sea. Kairi held tight to her remaining companion so hard he stumbled as they made their way to the water, but he could not pull away. When he had tried she had let out an alarmed cry and said, "I don't want to lose you too".

So he accepted the cumbersome journey, a small price to pay for his friend's peace of mind, he was all she had now, he reminded himself.

Someone offered him the basket of hibiscus and the boy took it and wordlessly, picked out the largest and prettiest bloom and offered it to the girl clinging to his arm. She accepted it and they waded out into the surf, the waves lapped around her knees, and at his shins. They knelt there, already too drenched from the rain to be concerned with getting wet. She lowered the blossom to the shimmering surface of the ocean with shaking hands, automatically the boy took hold of them with his uninjured one and helped her place it carefully in the water. If that was all he could do to make it easier for her, he owed her that much.

The current picked up the fragile petals, effortlessly, and swept it away, it didn't need to be stated that the flower must have been Sora, or at least his heart. The boldest, the brightest, and taken away from them far too deftly.

"It's really gone", she murmured, too quietly for him to decipher emotion from her tone. She wasn't truly speaking of the hibiscus bloom, or maybe she was if it were him, he didn't know anymore.

"It's really gone", he echoed numbly.

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><p><strong><em>Love it? Hate it? Please let me know. : )<em>**


	2. Oathkeeper

_**So this is a long time coming but I hope the chapter is decent enough.**_

_**I do not own Kingdom Hearts.**_

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><p><em><strong>Oathkeeper:<strong>_

Thunder shook the small house violently, another fork of lighting split the sky, a blinding radiance, he could watch it forever. In all likely hood the storm would stretch to eternity, it had rained for a year now, ever since they had lost their light.

But it was gone in an instant and he turned to look at the clock again, seven in the evening, she should have been back by then. Riku drummed anxiously at the arm of the couch he was seated on, nerves beginning to get the better of him.

She was fine, he told himself once more, the hour didn't have to mean anything, and she would be upset with him if he went looking for her when nothing was wrong.

But she should have gone off of patrol two hours ago, a nasty little voice in the back of his mind told him, she could be hurt or worse and it would be all his fault that another friend was gone.

The thought was enough to make the decision for him, he leapt up and took his jacket from the back of a chair across the room. The lights over head flickered and he debated over whether or not to turn them off. Ultimately he did when one of the bulbs overhead burnt out with a threatening hiss and a shower of sparks because of a power surge. He sighed irritably, he would have to replace that now.

Being an adult was not nearly as glamorous as it had looked from child hood. The grass is always greener on the other side and so on. It was hard, keeping track of everything that was required to make a home function, the oddest little necessities he had always taken for granted. Things like there always being paper towel in the dispenser when it was needed, it had simply never occurred to him before leaving his mother's house that it could be empty at a bad time.

His mother, another issue that, like the weather, would not resolve in the foreseeable future. He had tried to reconnect with her upon his return, truly, but he just wasn't the same person. One couldn't transition from a life in which they slept with a weapon beside them, just in case, to functioning in a peaceful, ordinary-person, existence over night. Every little sound had him jumping, instantly scanning his surroundings for the danger. There had been an evening he had been convinced that heartless were upon their doorstep once more and had rushed down stairs, his macabre looking key blade at the ready, only to find that the commotion he had heard belonged to an old friend of his mother who had come to catch up. Needless to say that they had both been alarmed and less than pleased at his reaction and he had been thoroughly embarrassed.

But as much as he wanted to, he couldn't explain the nature of the threats he had faced or the manner in which he had been living for the past year and a half. No words could accurately convey the desperation of fighting hordes of enemies that rose from nothing, the sheer hopelessness that washed over him every time his control over the remnants of Xemnas that resided in his heart slipped, nor the way it had ached at the sight of Kairi, lifeless, the very essence of who she was ripped out of her, knowing he was the one to blame...nothing was worse than that...

For two, long years he had lived with a woman who was as much a stranger to him as he was to her, and try as he might the rift his absence had caused was too great to repair. Sora's death had been the final straw, he was tired of being asked what was wrong, why he was acting so strangely, why he was so somber all the time. After one, last, tremendous row, two days after the funeral he had decided to leave for good.

And that was when the shit really hit the fan.

Kairi had been facing similar difficulties with her adoptive parents and as she had told him as they sat crying into one another's shoulders when they had received the news, "You're the only one left...who understands...".

That was them in a nutshell, they comprehended each other as naturally as they breathed. True friends, best friends, so very different, but so very alike. And when he moved away from home he had invited her to join him.

It hadn't been anything like he had imagined, it was curiously awkward, and he was reminded unsettlingly of a marriage proposal rather than a proposition of their next adventure. She hadn't answered immediately either, she simply showed up as he was packing one day and asked if he knew where they were going.

Having Kairi involved has certainly made searching for a place to live a less taxing experience. For one they could afford more together than they ever could have on their own, ordinarily a house would have been completely out of the question for people their age. But she had worked several jobs in his and Sora's absence to fill up long, isolated hours, and he had made quite a bit of money as either body guard or assassin for hire during his travels. He certainly wasn't proud of what he had done but it made his current situation thousand fold less complicated.

At least in practical ways, their parents were furious that they had moved in together and no amount of insistence on their part that they were only friends could convince either family that they weren't completely ruining their lives. They simply could not understand that it was a matter of having a haven were there was someone who understood and the scars they bore wouldn't be judged. To their parents, no matter how much they tried to tell them otherwise, they were ruining their lives by running off together so young. They assumed it was romance, not trauma, that drove them together.

He really shouldn't have laughed when it was brought up but the statement was so wide off of the mark that he had momentarily forgotten himself.

He snorted derisively, in his dreams.

It was his little secret, he was no less head over heels in love with her than he had been at sixteen, just over four years ago. That didn't mean he was such an awful person as to have designs on his dead best friend's sort-of girlfriend, nor labor under the delusion that he would ever deserve her.

He cared for her, he would never allow his less platonic feelings to come before that, at least, he made every attempt not to. He resolved before they had begun sharing a residence that she would not even be aware of them, she had enough to cope with without adding his emotions to the mix.

In the end they had selected a small but relatively well kept house on the opposite side of the island from their parents and within a week they had all of their things arranged properly. The only furnishings they had needed to buy were those for the shared areas, the living room and a shower curtain and towels for the bathroom, the kitchen was too small for a table to fit so they had settled on a coffee table that sat in front of the sofa. He had never been so grateful for Kairi being a girl, he was completely lost when it came to fabrics and color schemes but she navigated those aspects easily and efficiently and making decisions on the matter had been surprisingly painless.

If only everything could have gone so smoothly, in the early days he had discovered that she suffered from night terrors. It had been rather frightening to wake to the sound of her screaming at one in the morning.

The house had two bedrooms, on opposite sides of a short hallway from one another, it was only ten or so quick steps for him to enter her room and be at her bedside. The sound of the door opening did not wake her and she continued to cry out. He nudged her shoulder gently and when that elicited no response he shook it lightly. She started rather hard, sitting bolt upright, and her gaze darted frantically about her surroundings until it landed upon his face.

"Sora...", she had whispered and thrown her arms around his neck, dissolving into sobs . He didn't bother asking what was wrong, it didn't take a genius to deduce what her nightmare had been about. After much reassurance he had wearily returned to bed and a very fitful sleep.

The second time it happened, the very next night, he had simply picked her up and brought her back to his room with him. If she found it upsetting to be alone then she didn't have to be.

They had slept together ever since, it was easier that way. In a week her violent fits had given way to more quiet ones, with silent tears in the deepest hours of the evening. He would have missed them entirely had he not possessed such an innate awareness of his surroundings, even whilst unconscious. After three months she slept through until morning, but at that point they were so accustomed to sharing a bed that there had been an unspoken and mutual agreement not to disturb the comfortable arrangement. Over time they had come to the point that it seemed like the most normal thing in the world, so during a call from her father (That Riku had happened to over hear) in which he had demanded to know whether she was sleeping with him Kairi had retorted angrily, "Yeah, every day", and slammed the phone down on the receiver. For his part he gaped at her for several, long, uncomfortable moments.

"Kairi", he had spluttered at length, "You realize he thinks you meant we're-", a rare flush warmed his face, he was extremely reluctant to finish the sentence. Half because it was just plain awkward, and half because saying it aloud would make it that much harder to bring his imagination back under control.

Still in a temper, she huffed frustratedly and said in a bitingly sarcastic tone, "From the sound of it quite frequently too. You must be exhausted", she rolled her eyes and went to the kitchen to make herself lunch. Leaving him with a rather bright shade of red dusted across his pale face.

He toyed with the idea of making some equally dry remark back for commiseration's sake, but anything he could think of at the moment was either idiotic or wildly inappropriate. His best course of action was to just shut the hell up and let her vent off some steam.

The outrageousness of Kairi's statement hadn't stopped her parent's from believing it, or informing his. Not a day later his mother had shown up, wholly irate and demanding an explanation, thankfully his housemate hadn't been home at the time.

He wasn't entirely sure how long she had chewed him out, only that the conversation had ended abruptly when she had referred to Kairi as a slut. For a moment he had stood very still, surprised into silence more than anything else, his mother had known her for years, she had adored her up until he had moved in with her.

The very notion of his old friend being promiscuous was laughable, Kairi didn't have a wanton bone in her body. He would seriously doubt such things ever even crossed her mind, particularly in regards to himself. How could anyone ever think...

Finally he had forced himself to say, as calmly as he could manage, "Please leave us alone from now on", and he had turned on his heel and gone back inside, slamming the door in her face.

Riku was, by nature, a person of extreme self control, so the statement he felt angry enough to scream spoke volumes about how frustrated he was with the whole situation. Their families wouldn't believe the truth, making assumptions about both of their characters that they had no right to make. But Kairi simply saying what they wanted to hear seem to only incense them further.

The nature of their relationship really wasn't their parent's business at all, regardless. He was almost twenty and Kairi was eighteen, both of them fully legal adults, so who was anyone else to say what they should or shouldn't do. Not that so much as a questionable hug had passed between them, but it was the principle of the thing.

Much later that evening he had relayed what happened to Kairi, minus the unfounded insult. After only a moment's discussion they had decided it would be best to just avoid their families for a week or two until the whole thing blew over.

It wasn't terribly difficult, no part of their ordinary routines necessitated contact with them, and it was quite simple to avoid them while in town. There was very little chance of being bothered again while at the house, it was out of the way for those who lived in the village.

The issue was that they had been a little too good at hiding out, they still hadn't managed to reconcile, no contact at all in over eight months.

It pained her, he would have seen it even if he were still blindfolded. Kairi had always wanted a close knit family, a desire that likely originated from her not knowing her biological parents, so to lose anything even close, no matter how distant she had become with them, that wound wouldn't heal easily. She bore it with the grace of a martyr but he had heard her cry that night after the phone call, it was hard not to when she was right beside him.

But Kairi went through life like that, always ready with a smile or a kind word for someone who needed it, putting everybody else first. He'd practically torn a strip out of "Ansem" when he'd met him all those years ago for commenting that he didn't understand why he would go so far to save one weak little girl. She was not weak, everyone seemed to write her off because of her lack of physical power. What they couldn't see was that Kairi gave so much of her strength away there was never anything left over for her to have.

She was the force that had held them together, the three of them, reaching out across the worlds, across the divide between the realms itself. So perhaps her line of work wasn't swinging a weapon around, but she bordered on omniscient, an awareness and wisdom that transcended human abilities. Kairi was tremendously strong in her own way.

And after losing Sora she had sworn she would learn to protect those important to her with her own hands.

In the wreckage left after the incident the only thing Donald and Goofy had been able to recover was the key blade, more enduring than flesh and blood. Oblivion, it had arrived in a package from the Disney Castle, with a brief note which he suspected was from Mickey that said he was best suited to have it, seeing as he was one of the rare few who could actually use it and Sora would have wanted him to. Besides, it had read, he had defeated Roxas, it was custom for key blade wielders who clashed to take the weapon of their defeated opponent (Riku vaguely remembered "Diz" saying something about that), so it was rightfully his.

But he hadn't wanted it, he already had enough power. The soul eater, it's evolved state and worse still, something he kept secret to that day, a blade forged from a piece of Kingdom Hearts own core, imparted to seven beautiful guardians, the key blade of hearts. The very same one that Sora had run himself through with.

So he gave Oblivion to Kairi, the final remnant of the world that never was, the place in which they reunited for a brief and perfect time.

She put it to good use, for weeks she rose at dawn and went out to the island to practice, sometimes as long as twelve hours in a single session. She came back every evening exhausted and battered. When he asked what had happened to her she replied, "Just a little work out", and then gone to bed without another word and crashed for the night. Curious as to what exactly constituted a small work out he had gone to observe her the next day.

Surprise had quickly morphed through alarm to concern when she detailed her full itinerary for him. She was literally doing the same sort of routine he would have after a year working for Diz. He had thought it was just his imagination but there were signs of wear on her that had never been present before. Dark circles under her eyes, her complexion was too pale, like something had drained the life right out of her skin. She had lost weight too, Kairi had always been slight, but this was different. Nearly all the ordinary softness to her was gone, still feminine perhaps but that aside she he could count her vertebrae through her clothes, her collarbones and hip bones were almost sickly sharp, outlined clearly by the fabric of a sky blue dress that draped too loosely on her fragile looking frame.

It looked like she was trying to build up muscle but hadn't allotted proper time for her body to recover. Without it she would only break down whatever stamina she already had, effectively whittling herself away to nothing.

"Kairi", he said as gently as he could, "Shouldn't you start off a little more easily?".

She hadn't liked that at all, "Stop coddling me", she snapped, "I'm fine".

His brow furrowed, no she was not fine, she looked ready to collapse, "What you're doing is complete over kill for a beginner, you're going to hurt yourself".

"I don't have time to be a beginner! I'm so far behind, I haven't even caught up to where Sora was when he came back!" she cried, the look in her eye willing him to understand, "Riku", she implored, "What if they come next week, or tomorrow, or even right now? I would be nothing but dead weight to you".

"Nothing is coming", he had tried to reassure her, though he knew the confidence he projected was false. They were both aware that outside their little sphere of paradise a war had been left unfinished. It was only a matter of time before the other side regrouped and continued where they had left off from, the cataclysmic battle that had taken their friend's life.

And come they did, upon a night eerily similar to the first invasion, he had woken to her trembling against him, her hand latched on to his crippled one so tightly the appendage was going numb. At first he had thought Kairi was having nightmares again, groggily he had stroked at her arm with the hand that wasn't trapped in a death grip, hopping that the small, tactile reassurance would make her relax her grasp. He wondered faintly what had triggered the dreams returning...

But then he had heard the commotion, just outside their window and an ever so light scratching on the door. He had jolted awake, terror creeping through him like ice, the heartless had finally returned.

"Riku", she whispered, her voice trembling, rendered small with fear, "I don't think the walls will keep them out for long".

No, they probably wouldn't, he knew first hand how relentless the heartless were, they swarmed by the hundreds, slipping through cracks, and creases, it was almost impossible to prevent them infesting an area. But they shouldn't have had access to their world at all, the heart of the islands had been locked tightly by Sora's key blade, protected from corruption. It didn't make any sense...

"Me either", he murmured, trying to make as little noise as possible, the slightest of stimuli could draw them. A flickering shadow, the scent of perfume, even the sound of a breath, a beating heart. How many surrounded them? The darkness in everyone called to them and he overflowed with it, surely his tainted soul would bring vast numbers.

"We have to stop them", she breathed, "We can't let them take our world away again".

He nodded in affirmation, he had already known that too, "I say we call the key blades on three?", Kairi bobbed her head in agreement.

Thank goodness it had been cold enough for him to sleep with a shirt on, he definitely didn't relish the idea of running out to face the intruders half naked. For all he had sacrificed he had managed to retain some vestiges of his dignity and he intended to keep it that way. Kairi normally slept in a t-shirt, namely one of his that she had swiped eons ago, and shorts, she was adequately covered but she was going to freeze out in the rain. He pondered on whether he should say something, but unless she intended to make a break for her coat in the several seconds before the fight broke out, there was really no help for it.

"One", he mouthed. He drew the blankets back silently, feeling a stab of remorse when she shivered against the chill air. If they lived through this he was going to apologize profusely, the fact was that he couldn't waste their precious moments of advantage on scrambling for an article of clothing. A pre-emptive strike could mean the difference between success or failure.

"Two", he raised himself up on his forearms as soundlessly as he could manage, beside him she followed suit, the warmth of her hand left his as she rose to a full seated position. It might have been smarter to stay low, but they were about to betray their location anyway, so it didn't really matter. His feet touched the smooth surface of the worn, wooden floor boards, they creaked as his weight pressed upon them and he mentally berated himself for his sloppy technique. As if to emphasize his blunder, she moved so quietly that he didn't notice until she was crouched across the room.

Kairi was posed to lunge, her finger on the window lock, he had to admire her thinking on that score, it was a much quicker and simpler exit, and more importantly the heartless wouldn't be expecting them to use it.

"I'll go first", he whispered, "stay close". If they got separated again or worse he would never forgive himself.

"Be careful", her concern brought a half smile to his face despite the circumstances, no one could say Kairi didn't care.

The ambush didn't go as planned, maybe it would have if he hadn't stopped dead in his tracks. He wasn't sure what he had expected to see, destruction, chaos, armageddon perhaps...

But not several hundred dusks, their white, willowy forms swaying wildly in the storm. Their single clawed hands tearing at anything they could reach, their unseeing faces searching, cruel gashes meant to imitate a mouth gaping wide.

And it was much worse than his projections, because unlike heartless, nobodies were the epitome of physical power. Blindingly fast, impossibly agile, inhumanly strong. They didn't stand a chance.

Or rather they did but it would be a miracle if Kairi ever forgave him for what he was about to do.

Behind him she waited, wide eyed at the sight, the massive and gaudy Oblivion ready in her trembling hands. They would tear her apart, the thought of her ripped to shreds by the creatures, broken open in pursuit of a heart they could never have, was enough to make him sick. The picture burned in his mind's eye, burrowed down deep into his consciousness and took root there. He was not willing to risk it coming to fruition, a price too high, even for his own heart, even for her friendship.

"Kairi go inside", he instructed and his voice was steel. There was no time to waste arguing the matter. He could not bring himself to look at her, but he heard her footsteps retreating, a sigh of relief found it's way past his lips.

It came easily, as if it had only been yesterday, he reached out from within and the shadows were there like an old friend. Waiting, always waiting, ready to bend to his will at the slightest word. It was repulsive how natural it felt, like an extension of himself, or perhaps he an extension of it, it was so easy to lose track.

He knelt in the sand and pressed his palm to the sodden earth, seemingly boring a black hole into it. A pit opened beneath his hand, shimmering, twisting, almost alive. It began to materialize rapidly, solidifying into silhouettes, figures separating themselves from the writhing mass.

They would not take the islands, for these heartless were his summons, they had no consciousness of their own. The corruption ran thick through his veins, the creatures could feel it, they would never dare cross him.

He knew he had nothing to fear from the heartless but those eyes had always un-nerved him and so he addressed the horde with his own gaze averted, "Destroy".

It was all of the instruction they required, they sensed, rather than knew, he referred to the invaders. It would be a close match, but he held a single advantage that might allow them to triumph. The heartless were highly unpredictable, a difficult attribute to combat for a powerful but calculating dusk. It was why he did not give them more specific orders, anything he could come up with would follow a far more recognizable pattern than simply allowing the creatures to use their instinct.

He watched unblinking while they one by one erased the invaders, perhaps the wiser decision would have been to help them, but he couldn't quite bring himself to fight alongside the heartless again. It would have felt to close to the days he had spent wandering the reaches between realms with nothing but the dark and Ansem's ghost for company.

Thankfully they didn't need him, just as he had predicted they complete their assignment while he struggled with himself and then disintegrated without a trace.

He glanced over his shoulder and his heart dropped, Kairi was standing roughly ten meters away staring at him with an ashen face. She hadn't left as he had thought, only retreated to safer ground, she had to have seen. He wrapped his arms around himself defensively, as if that would hide what he was.

"I thought it had stopped!", she called over the wind, her expression less angry than afraid, which was thousands of times worse.

He approached her carefully, like one would a skittish animal, to his own surprise she didn't back away from him, "It did", he took a deep breath, "I summoned them intentionally".

Her lips parted in shock, her wide eyes searched his anxiously, he surmised she was searching for any traces of Ansem there, when she could see none she whispered, "Why?".

"I didn't have a choice", he intoned, willing her to understand, "If I had thought there was any other way...", he trailed off.

"There was", she replied cooly, "I could have fought. Why didn't you let me?".

It was a very good question, he could admit that, and all he had to offer by way of explanation was his absolute terror of losing her again. It was a deeply visceral fear, beyond reason even and it had seemed an absolute justification only moment ago, but he found he didn't have the words to make her understand. Whether he was ashamed to have been so gut-wrenchingly afraid or the query simply probed too deep it was very difficult to tell. He wasn't certain where attachment ended and infatuation began and he doubted he could answer without revealing himself. He remained silent.

"I can't forgive you right this second" she replied mournfully, "Just give me a little time".

He wondered if it meant she was leaving but he had returned to bed around sun rise and found her in her usual place, curled over on herself, and fragile looking, but still there. They rested easily well until the afternoon and when the three pm sun woke him he found her playing with his hair which he took to mean the world hadn't come crashing down.

Word had eventually gotten around about the attack and one thing lead to another until they found themselves commissioned to guard the town. Which had become more of a walled citadel as the danger from the outside grew. Residents were not allowed out after dusk anymore, the old islands they had once played on were strictly off limits. They had collected treasured possessions from the caves half of a year ago with the aide of an armed escort that neither of them actually needed.

Kairi should have come off of her shift by now, her lateness didn't bode well because it meant something was keeping her. The truth was he hated letting her take solo watches, it wasn't that he doubted her ability, or anything logical really. It was that horrible, nagging, voice in the back of his head that kept insisting one day she wouldn't come home. He was afraid today might be that day.

He scrambled down the cliff leading to an extremely secluded patch of beach, knowing that Kairi favored staking out a place somewhere and sensing what was around her rather than constantly pacing the perimeter as he did. Kairi was an uncannily good tracker.

It was very nearly dark and he struggled to see as he lowered himself down the rock face, swearing under his breath when he chose the wrong hand hold and the sharp edge gouged his good hand. Fantastic.

His feet hit the sand with a soft thump when he jumped the last four meters. He landed neatly, letting the momentum pull him into a crouch so his joints would not have to absorb the impact before he righted himself and sped down the worn trail that wound between tall tufts of beech grass. And there at the end of the path upon the white sand, in the rain, was Kairi. With her long, red, hair and her black dress of mourning that whipped around her small form, barred to the sea wind.

He called her name, cupping his hands around his mouth, trying to make his voice carry over the maelstrom.

At first she did not seem to hear him and it took countless repetitions from his lips before she turned to him, slowly, like a woman possessed.

Her eyes were glassy and far away. How many worlds? How many skies ? What was it that she could see with that all knowing gaze?

And then she turned her eyes upon him and her mouth moved slowly, sadly, and there were tears dripping down her too thin cheeks. He could not hear that soft spoken voice but he read her lips well enough to make out her message.

"It has us", her eyes were overflowing with whatever lay before them, something he could not see, and could only cry helplessly, "What has us?".

Her jaw trembled and her shoulders shook and she spoke the word he had heard one thousand times from countless faces and voices, the one he had come to loathe, the thing rooted inside him like a cancer.

"Darkness".

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